


breaking fever.

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Brought To Justice [14]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Burns, Complicated Relationships, Dysfunctional Family, Father Figures, Fever, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), M/M, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 00:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Pietro and Wanda each have a fever, but can hardly be treated in the same manner - Loki treats him as best as he can.And Erik--That's another matter entirely.





	breaking fever.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Loki & Pietro. You’ve talked at length about how you see Loki as a father Figure to can u explore that more in a shortfill ? Ty!

“Drink some water, Pietro,” Loki murmurs, and he can feel the young man shudder and jolt in his bed, his head whipping violently to the side, but Loki grasps hold of his hair and holds him still, letting magic bleed into his body to allow him to match Pietro’s speed, to function as he does - it will exhaust him, in the end, but that matters not. “Pietro? Pietro, I need you to drink.”

Feverishly, Pietro turns to look at him, confusion on his features and in his defocused eyes, uncertainty, at hearing a voice that does not come to his ears slowly and unnaturally. 

“It’s alright,” Loki murmurs. “It’s just me: it’s Loki. Take a drink.” Pietro hesitates, but then he parts his dry lips, and Loki brings the glass to his mouth. Bit by bit, Pietro drains the glass, and Loki glances across the infirmary room.

The chemical blast had caught the Maximoff twins both, leaving them sick and feverish. It will work its way out of their systems within the next day or so, but… Erik Lehnsherr had jumped to catch Wanda as she’d entered the infirmary, and across the room he can see the man, bent over his daughter and stroking her hair back from her face as Strange attends her.

“Wanda,” Pietro mumbles.

“She’s fine,” Loki says, and he leans back, catching a wet cloth and bringing it to Pietro’s brow. The young man runs hot - much hotter than the non-mutants do - but he’s even hotter than usual, now, running a fever. 

“We’re putting Wanda on a drip of iced saline, as well as giving her some ice packs,” Doctor Strange calls from across the room. “Do you want to–”

“Not exactly  _possible_  in this instance,” Loki retorts crisply. Strange scowls at him - as if Loki could give the remotest  _care_  as to his thoughts. Loki has been a healer since before his great great grandparents were born. 

“What? Why not?”

“Because the drip will be too slow to do anything for him,” Loki replies. “You deal with your patient,  _Doctor_ : allow me to attend mine.” Erik turns his head, and he meets Loki’s gaze. For a long few moments, they lock eyes, and Loki can see the guilt in the blue shine of Erik’s gaze–

And then he turns back to his daughter.

Disgusted, Loki waves his hand, and he drags a curtain around the bed with a burst of magic, beginning to unbutton his blouse. “Pietro, I’m going to– How conscious are you?”

“Uncomfortably so,” Pietro says, a little blearily, and he grunts out a sound of pain. “You’re taking your shirt off.” Loki lets his skin shift, turning a deep blue instead of white, and he sees Pietro’s lips set in slow understanding. 

“Skin-to-skin contact,” Loki says. “Much as you would with somebody suffering from hypothermia, although the situation here is somewhat reversed. I can try with just ice, if you prefer, but I’d be worried about leaving burns on your skin.”

“Skin-to-skin is fine,” Pietro mutters. There’s a flush high in his cheeks, from the fever more from embarrassment, and Loki drops his shirt aside, kicking his boots off before he moves onto the bed. Moving Pietro is easy. He’s lightly muscled, but he isn’t heavy, and Loki lifts him clean from the mattress, positioning himself underneath and bundling Pietro against his chest. The film of the hospital gown is a line of separation, but Loki can feel Pietro’s relief  _immediately_. Pietro lets out a hiss of relief, throwing his arms around Loki’s neck before stiffening with uncertainty.

“It’s okay, Pietro,” Loki says quietly. With a moment’s thought, he vanishes most of the material of his jeans, leaving him in light shorts instead, and he feels the unspeakable  _heat_  of Pietro’s thighs and backside burning against his lap. It’s painful, very much so, but he focuses on the bird-like beat of Pietro’s heart and the way his breathing comes sharp into his lungs and then fast from his nose. “I know it’s hard, I know… But your blood will cool, and your body will digest the toxin.”

“How long?” Pietro asks. 

“I don’t know, darling,” Loki murmurs. “I don’t know.” He rubs his hand gently over the line of Pietro’s spine, his fingers gentle and  _freezing_  cold, and he feels Pietro shudder, feels him slowly relax… He falls into a feversleep, and Loki allows his body to return to its usual speed and function, and he inhales, taking in the scent of Pietro’s cologne.

The burn of his skin stings at Loki’s chest and neck, at his thighs, even at his hand where he strokes rhythmic circles on Pietro’s back, but it won’t  _kill_  him, and honestly, what other option is there?

It takes hours. Every twenty minutes or so, Loki will gently wake him, make him drink some more water - he’s  _sweating_ , and Loki wants to ensure he remains hydrated. He rubs an ointment into the thin skin beneath his jaw, letting it seep into his bloodstream to soothe his organs as they perform their work in overtime…

“Thank you,” Pietro says hoarsely, after two hours or so, when he can no longer fall back asleep. “You didn’t have to– I’d have been fine.” He glances to the curtain. Down the infirmary, Loki can hear Erik reading to Wanda, from some book… Judging by Pietro’s expression, this is a habit of his, when Wanda is ill.

“Would you like me to read to you?” Loki asks quietly. 

Pietro’s breath hitches in his throat. “No, you don’t ha–”

“I’ll read to you,” Loki decides, and he leans back in his seat, conjuring a book to his hand. With his free hand, he shifts the book in his hand to look at the first page, and they must look ridiculous - Pietro, only a few inches shorter than Loki himself, curled up in his lap like a folded puppet, and Loki holding him… But what matters such things? “ _Aujhourd’hui,”_  Loki reads quietly, _“maman est morte.”_ Pietro lets out a short sound, amused, but he listens as Loki reads.

They sit like that, just so, for nearly four hours… And the fever breaks.

Wanda takes longer to heal, of course - once Pietro is well enough to stand, he is sat beside her bed, watching over her beside his father… Erik takes a break as Loki drags a robe onto his skin. It  _hurts_ , and Loki knows, Loki knows, that his skin is burnt where Pietro had been touching him, much too hot to sustain such contact for–

“Thank you,” Erik says quietly. “For–”

“Don’t speak to me,” Loki whispers harshly, and he sees the other man freeze, sees him stiffen. “You are–” His nostrils flare, and he feels the heat  _inside_ him, this time, feels such fury… Cradling his right hand to his chest, not letting the slightly burned, tender skin touch anything, he turns toward the infirmary door. “You cannot  _do_  that, Erik, and wonder why he cannot call you his father without hesitation.”

“Wanda would take longer to heal,” Erik says immediately. “Wanda–”

“You think I care for your excuses?” Loki asks. “You think you can deceive  _me_ , I who am God of Lies?” Erik stops. Presses his lips tight together, his gaze hardening. “You’re a bad father, Erik. You always have been: you always will be. He deserves better - they  _all_ deserve better.”

Erik looks down at Loki’s hand, taking in the way the blue skin has burned to purple in places, seeing where the outer skin  _peels_. He inhales. The hardness fades, and Loki sees  _shame_  on his face - good. Good!

Loki turns on his heel, and goes home. 

—

“Oh,  _God_ , Loki,” Steve murmurs, and Loki sinks lower into his bathwater. “What  _happened_?”

“It will heal,” Loki mutters, and Steve seems cognizant of Loki’s evasiveness, so he simply nods his head. Leaning to sit on the side of the bath, he looks at Loki’s skin, where the deep purple is now giving way to lilac, at least, and he is shedding skin like a snake. Norns, it hurts.

“You have a text, from Pietro,” Steve says, holding up his phone. “You want me to read it?” Loki nods. “Says…  _Wanda’s fever has broken, and she is at home with Lorna._   _I am home now, in my own apartment. Thank you for your medical assistance today.”_  He trails off, slowly, and then continues, “ _Your children are lucky to have you as a father. I envy them.”_

Loki’s eyes close shut, just for a moment, and then he exhales.

“You want me to text him back?” Steve asks quietly. Loki shakes his head.

“I’ll call him in a few hours,” he murmurs. “He was… He was feverish, and delirious, and nobody else could  _treat_  him because he ran too fast, and he… Erik, he sat beside Wanda, and was  _reading_  to her, for hours! He never so much as stood beside Pietro, not even for a moment. It’s one thing, for others to dislike him, but for his own  _father_ –”

Steve is silent. He puts out one hand out, and Loki shifts in the water, leaning into Steve’s hand as it gently weaves itself in Loki’s hair. “He’s got you though,” Steve murmurs. “Right?”

“It isn’t the same.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Steve says. “God knows it doesn’t have to be. It just matters that you care.” Loki leans his head back, into Steve’s palm, and he lets his eyes droop shut.

Steven is right - he knows that. But he wishes– Oh, but what do wishes matter? 

“I’ll call him,” Loki says again. “Later.”

“Okay,” Steve murmurs, pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Hit me up on Tumblr](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/faq). Requests always open.


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